Maria was a Nurse

Maria was a nurse in an ancient hospital situated in the middle of Phoenix, one of the 400 small nation-states that made up the geo-political world. Nurses in the 20th century would easily recognize Maria’s work: fluorescent lights, blue scrubs, lemon-scented floor cleaner. Even the treatments and medicines were similar. As if medical science had taken a break for two centuries while the world heaved and shifted with wars, famines and great migrations of people.

Maria blended into the hospital. She had shoulder length auburn hair and brown eyes. Her features were pretty, subtle and forgettable.

Maria's last patient that night was Prof. Jacobs, but he insisted on going by John. He was a plainspoken old man who came to the hospital in simple clothes, but John's high stature was clear to Maria.

He was suffering from a rare blood disease, and the only treatment involved Eculizumab, an exorbitantly expensive drug. Only someone with tremendous means could secure its import.

"How's your day been?" John asked.

"Fine, I suppose." Maria hated small talk. She reviewed his IV solution on a dispensary panel on the wall.

"Ah, and how has Phoenix been treating you?" John asked, "Originally from, Michalas?"

"How did you know?"

"There's a slight accent in the way you speak Universal. So, did you come in the last draft?"

"No, I arrived about five years ago."

"Enjoy it yet? I imagine you live a bit better than you did back in Michalas."

"It's been alright."

"Long day. I understand. I'm sorry, I know I'm just a boring old man. I'll let you get out of here."

"No, no. Phoenix has been so welcoming. So beautiful. I just didn't choose to come here."

"Oh. My dear, I am sorry. Michalas doesn't have a petition system?"

"No, it doesn't."

"That's a damn shame."

Maria tried to smile. She liked John. His beard and belly reminded her of Santa Claus. His webbed blue eyes saw everything. Maybe that's why Maria opened up to him so quickly. There were no secrets with John; he already knew everything.

Her shift ended at midnight.

Before changing out of her uniform, Maria began her ritual. She sat in a hallway, a dim, abandoned hallway far from the bustle of the main hospital. She clutched a heart-shaped locket she wore around her neck and closed her eyes.

She pictured her husband, Alexander, and her three daughters in their home on the beach in Michalas. She hadn't seen them in five years. The faces were dimming from her memory. Even the photo of them in the locket was fading with every passing year.

Maria shuffled off to the train and sat in a reclined leather seat. An attendant almost spilled Maria’s drink as the train made a sudden right. The route avoided the bad part of town, the part where most people lived.

Maria entered her apartment and put her bag on the marble kitchen counter.

Her apartment was large, with upscale furniture and voice automated features. In a matter of minutes, Maria would be enjoying a steak dinner and wine while watching Phoenix's magnificent skyline, but first she marked another X on her calendar. Tomorrow was the neighborhood meeting, and another three months after that would be the draft.

The first draft was in Novogrod in the year 2157. Novogrod was small, cold, barren and overpopulated, and its neighbors swore they'd gun down any refugees. The world had become unstable, and with the changing climate came waves of global migration. People grew more intolerant and soon immigration brought war and death. And so, Novogrod proposed a trade, the neighboring country of Barine would get the best and brightest citizens Novogrod had to offer, and in exchange, Novogrod would take from Barine a smaller number of less desirable people.

Since then, drafts were annual and worldwide. The smallest was just a handful of people traded by name. The largest included hundreds of thousands. In Maria's trade, Michalas received 232 farm hands and 2.3 billion forex scrip for one hundred nurses.

Next to the calendar was a business card from Peter, a man who made her skin crawl.

Maria would do what she could to see her family again, but she’d avoid Peter if she could.

The neighborhood meeting would decide her district's stance on the immigration draft. Maria waited for her turn to speak to the local board. She was, after all, a Phoenician, with all the rights and privileges of an upper-middle class citizen.

Another man, Phillip Wilkes, echoed the popular opinion of the nation.

"Drag them away!" Wilkes said to applause. "Our streets are full of vagrants setting fires, committing crimes. I say slate 60,000 unskilled workers to be sent anywhere, and I'll endorse a tax increase to pay for it."

Wilkes nodded to Maria as he returned to his seat, his face full of respect for his peer.

A board member sighed as Maria approached the pulpit. He didn't mean to be rude; it was an involuntary response. He heard Maria's case too many times.

"You know my story," Maria started, "and you know why I am throwing myself upon the good graces of this community to rescue my husband Alexander and my three daughters. My previous country, Michalas, doesn't allow communication with Phoenix. It did not give me a choice to come here, but now that I am here, I only wish to share this wonderful home with the people who mean so much to me. I renew my petition for reunion. Thank you for your consideration."

Maria left to pity and applause. She knew the sympathy was empty. The board meeting continued, never giving Maria a commitment to her petition.

She went home and drank a bottle of wine, then threw the empty bottle through the TV. She screamed. Begged. Cried. And then picked up the phone. She sniffed the mucus to the back of her throat and said simply, "I'm ready to talk."

___________________________

Peter was always connected. The lenses of his glasses were two screens displaying all manner of information, from macroeconomic data to the contact information for local assembly people. He seemed almost alien: his silver slicked back hair, his pure black eyes, the robotic way he spoke. He frightened Maria.

She sat on her couch, watching him speak some ancient pre-Universal language to an unknown caller.

"Sorry about that," Peter said, taking off the glasses and concentrating entirely upon Maria. "You wanted to be reconnected with your husband, correct?"

Maria nodded.

Peter connected the dots in his mind. "There is still time. Yes. I think so. But you will not like it."

"Just tell me what I have to do."

"The board will never take your petition seriously. Phoenix's draft board intends to send away 60,000 people to any nation willing to accept them. Michalas will be one such nation. But they will not send away people of value, like nurses."

"So, I need to lose my nursing license."

"Yes, but more than that. You have a patient named John Jacobs, correct?"

Maria nodded again.

"His real name is Andrew Malkowitz. He runs a large bank here in Phoenix with illicit connections. I have a powerful client who would appreciate Malkowitz's death."

"You want me to kill my patient?"

"The disease will kill him. I only want the quality of your care to decline enough for his condition to prove fatal. A simple mistake, one enough for you to lose your license, but not so severe as to warrant suspicion."

Peter could see the hostility on Maria's face.

"I have overstayed my welcome. The offer is there. You may return to Michalas. And I can promise you this - no one will miss Andrew Malkowitz." And with that, Peter left.

Maria hated Michalas. It trained her and sold her off as a commodity. Whereas Phoenix had welcomed her, giving her dignity and respect, freedom and prosperity.

But returning to Michalas as a poor worker had certain advantages. She could be forgotten, ignored. When Maria left, her family had been living in a ramshackle wooden home near the beach. The family could fish and catch crabs. It was illegal, but that meant little in Michalas. She craved for that time with her family, but to kill for it?

Maria's mind started justifying the act. His disease was severe. He was so old. She was only extending his life, not saving it. The unfairness of her life entitled her to seek happiness at any cost. No matter what her mind told her, she couldn't forget the simple smile of an old man.

"What's the matter Maria?" Jacobs asked. It had been two weeks since her meeting with Peter.

"Oh, what was that? I'm sorry I've been so distracted," Maria said, "Do you have a family?"

"Sadly, no woman took me up on that offer."

"I find that hard to believe, Mr. Malkowitz." Maria gasped. Then silence.

Malkowitz's face darkened. And then he laughed. "The cat's out of the bag, is it? Don't worry Maria," He said, "Just tell me, who told you my name?"

Maria noticed Malkowitz's hand moving under his bedsheet. She lifted the sheet to see a smartphone and immediately grabbed it, but Malkowitz pulled back. The two grunted and wrestled, Maria putting her elbow into the old man's eye socket. He yelled in pain and grabbed the locket from Maria's chest.

The chain broke.

Maria's face changed. She strapped Malkowitz to the bed. "You'll rot in jail for this!"

Maria changed his medicine on the dispensary panel. It was a simple, understandable, lethal change. The old man began to fade. "Maria, please!" And then, he was unconscious.

"I wasn't going to kill you. I wasn't going to kill you," Maria repeated over and over as the lights faded from the old man's eyes.

She released his straps and made sure he didn't bruise himself in the struggle. "I wasn't going to kill you," she whispered. She didn't know if that was true.

The rest of the plan went exactly as Peter described. Her nurse's license was revoked, and she was condemned to exile in Michalas. Her existence was forgotten overnight. She was kicked out of her home, forced into the slums she’d never seen before.

Maria didn't know how most Phoenicians lived. She only knew the privileged life of a valuable person. Now, she had to spend her days and nights with the hordes of unskilled workers frying roaches for dinner in alleyways.

Maria rarely slept. The homeless would quadruple in the late hours of the night. Milling about in the steam venting from the sewers. Their deformed faces and cackles scared Maria as much as the gangs who would go tent to tent shaking down the defenseless.

She realized that she had been blind. Phoenix wasn't a generous and civilized nation, they just needed her.

Finally, the day arrived.

Scared, confused masses were pushed onto trains as crowds cheered. Maria was the first on board. She used the bathroom to rinse away weeks of street grit.

When they arrived, Maria burst through the crowd of lost deportees. They were uprooted Phoenicians without a shred of knowledge about their new home. There'd be no one to help them, since the Michalas government pocketed the money that'd been ostensibly given to care for the undesirables. None of that applied to Maria who walked fifteen miles with a smile.

When she arrived home, there was no one to greet her but weeds. The house had been abandoned years ago. She had no way of knowing what happened to her family, or where they were now. She had nothing. And so, she went to the beach.

Maria ate crab that night. She sat alone watching the ocean. In her hand was a broken locket, dented and with bent hinges, and Maria tried remembering the faces one last time.